New Orleans Weekend: Titties, Toilet Bowls, and Flying

As you may have guessed by the lack of posts over the weekend, I made it on my plane Thursday without any current id. It should warm your heartstrings at what a great job the airport security people are doing – the first guy was thrilled to have somebody to “riff” with once he saw my military id (exp 1996) that I even brought out my Costco membership card to really get some laughs and ensure that I was gonna be let through. I guess Gallagher never has any trouble getting thru airport security. Then on the way back, the 90 year-old guy checking got annoyed that it was taking more than 4 seconds to see the documents I tried to show him and grunted me through. Sweet!

Oh yeah, my birth certificate arrived…14 minutes after we left for the airport. Though it prolly wouldn’t have been needed. But let’s thank Sistatime! for stepping in (applause.)

But as I was sitting on the plane waiting for takeoff, something occurred to me…why is First Class in the front of the plane? I mean, aren’t they supposed to be the cool kids of the plane? In what other instance of society do the cool people sit in front? Didn’t all the cool kids sit on the back of the bus? Back of the class? Of course they did! They sat in the back and made fun of the nerds in front, as society decrees!! But airplanes have it backwards. And there’s barely even a curtain to divide the two sections, so we can easily look into the First Class section to see what they’re doing. Now, if they were in the BACK of the plane, you’d spend the whole flight wondering what the hell they were doing back there; assuming that Led Zeppelin was doing an acoustic set while Emeril was rolling homemade crepes on Hooters girls’ titties. But since we can see their section, we actually know what they’re doing: the exact same shit as us. Sitting in a seat reading a newspaper. So now you think oh I see, you’re doing the exact same shit I am, but are willing to pay twice as much for it so as not to be seen sitting with, you know, ME. So there’s not even an allure of cool mystery about the First Class section. It’s just “hey look at us, we’re assholes!” Seems like nobody thought this one through.

Also. Why are there still “No Smoking” signs on every airplane? Hasn’t it been about 20 years since smoking was banned? Is this still a problem; has anyone ever seen anyone in the last 15 years get caught smoking while unawares? “I can’t smoke on this plane?? When did THIS happen????” And doesn’t that set up a “well, I didn’t know I couldn’t punch the stewardess, there wasn’t a sign NOT to…I knew I wasn’t allowed to smoke, but I have to plead ignorance on this one, Your Honor”? Or should we just assume that there has never been an airplane built after 1987? Gee, that’s comforting.

The part of flying I’m most terrified of is taking off and landing, and during this flight I decided that if I had to crash, I’d prefer it be on the landing end of the trip. For one, at least you can feel like you got your money’s worth. “Well, they said they’d take me to Vegas, and here we are…(bursting in flames.)” And dying anywhere other than where you live has to feel a little more glamorous, right? I mean, you did pay a bunch of money to fly to somewhere, so it must be a cool place, I would think.

And finally – the fucking unloading of the plane. This a fucking nightmare. It’s exactly like the goddam bus; you stand up, grab your bag, and then stand without moving for 15 minutes. Sounds like sex in the gym shower, no? Anyway – seriously, how can it possibly take so long? How much shit can you have carried on that it takes so long to fucking unfold/delouse while we all stand there? I would like to introduce a new rule: The 30-Second Rule. When the seatbelt sign goes off, ONLY the people who think they can get their shit and themselves off the plane in 30 seconds are allowed to get out of their seat. That should clear out about ¾ of the plane, leaving the fuckwads who have apparently spent the flight laying out a royal wedding china table setting in the carrier bins to take their sweet time exiting the fucking plane.

Oh yeah, and ps – I’d like to see the law that makes it legal for you people to call “pretzels” a “snack pack.”